This week we feature the Relic of Uldaur as our profitable hot item of the week. These tokens, looted from mobs throughout The Storm Peaks, were formerly soulbound and only used as currency to purchase items from a vendor in Frosthold. As of the latest patch however, the relics may also be used as a turn-in for reputation gain with The Sons of Hodir faction in The Storm Peaks. In terms of establishing the value of the Relics of Ulduar it is worth noting that Sons of Hodir is, in a sense, the Aldor/Scryer faction of Northrend since it is the sole source of high-end shoulder enchants. The best of these shoulder enchants are only available at the exalted reputation level which means that if you want the best shoulder enchant in the game you have to grind reputation with this faction. With that in mind it is easy to see how these items might hold value to most players. Our testing, across three servers checked daily for a one week period, revealed that Relics of Ulduar are currently selling for an average of 2.21 gold per item but we found many instances where the relics could be purchased much cheaper. As far as farming the Relics for resale, we advise that this is not an item profitable enough to focus your farming efforts on due to the low resale value. Instead, simply collect and don’t turn in any relics you acquire during your questing in the zone and daily questing for Sons of Hodir faction reputation. An informal poll amongst approximately 20 players revealed that, after completing all available zone quests and repeated faction questing to exalted the average amount of relics collected without turning any in or making any purchases is between 150 and 200. 200 relics times the modest estimate of 2 gold per relic yields a nice 400 gold return for zero investment. Sure, there is in the investment of your time and the consideration of opportunity cost, but by spending an extra day or two grinding Sons of Hodir reputation you can sell all the Relics you collected and have a nice profit for doing so. Even if you insist on turning in any relics that you pick up you may still want to check the auction house for bargains as it seems that this is one of those items that people are not yet very familiar with so there’s lots of price disparity going on and plenty of deals available for the savvy WoW trader.

Side note: Despite rumors to the contrary, the Iron Boot Flask is still available for purchase from Rork Sharpchin in Frosthold for the low price of only 10 Relics of Ulduar. If you are interested in owning one I’d go get one soon because Blizzard has a habit of rethinking the availability of these types of things from time to time and it is reasonable to expect the cost of the flask to increase at some point.